Tag Archives: dog health

FitLabPGH Lab Lessons 39:23 Enhance Your Dog’s Quality of Life

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Labrador Lesson for 9/29/23:

Enhance your dog’s quality of life.

We all want our dogs to live long, healthy, happy lives. Here are 3 simple tips for enhancing your dog’s quality of life: 1. Keep your dog at a healthy weight. This calls for a combination of portion control and movement. Consult your vet or a dog trainer if you need guidance in formulating a plan. 2. Keep your dog active, ideally on soft surfaces with a healthy dose of hills to utilize more muscle mass. 3. Be present with your dog, who may not make good/safe decisions when left unsupervised.

Move more. Move often. Move with your dog. Get outside and enjoy hoodie season.

 

FitLabPGH Lab Lessons 16:23 Be Present for Your Pets

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Labrador Lesson for 4/14/23;

Be Present for Your Pets.

As Labradors, we’re happy anytime we get outside for a walk/run/hike…but we’ve noticed some humans don’t pay attention to their dogs when they’re in the park or on the trails. If you are more focused on your phone or your workout than your dogs, this message is for you. When you take us out for a movement session, that movement session is about our health and happiness. Stay alert. Be aware of dangers (things we can eat, wild animals, off-leash dogs, hot weather). Shorten our leashes, take breaks, or cut short the movement session as needed to keep us safe. Please. Thank you.

Whether you have 2 legs or 4, you get more out of a movement session if you stay safe and healthy! And from what we can see, humans would get more benefit from moving if they turned off their devices and focused on being present.

FitLabPGH Lab Lessons 15:23 Human Treats Aren’t for the Dogs

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Labrador Lesson for 4/7/23;

Human treats aren’t for the dogs.

As Labradors, we will eat anything…whether or not it is likely to make us sick. We know that humans often have food-based gatherings of friends and family during the Spring (Ramadan, Passover, Easter, and more), so we want to remind you to keep an eye on your celebratory food. Dropped food isn’t the only risk, as some dogs are counter-surfers and others have feline friends to knock food off the counter for them. A trip to the emergency vet can ruin your holiday celebration (even if we fully recover).

Whether you have 2 legs or 4, enjoy your holiday celebrations, but make sure your 4-legged friends don’t get too close to harmful human treats.

 

FitLabPGH Lab Lessons 5:23 Help Keep Us Safe

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Labrador Lesson for 1-27-23:

Help keep us safe.

As Labradors, we don’t always make the best decisions. So we ask our humans to help keep us safe. If we’re not in our fenced in backyard (or in the house), we’re on leash…why? Because, left to our own devices, we might chase a rabbit 🐇, spook a deer 🦌, or encounter a skunk 🦨 or porcupine! We’ve also been known to eat things we shouldn’t eat. Plus, we’re lovers, not fighters, and we’d rather avoid unfriendly dogs.

If you’re a dog who makes questionable decisions, ask your humans to help keep you safe. And if you’re a human with dogs in your life, do your best to keep them safe and healthy!